Lorgar Aurelian slowly rose to his feet, extending a strong, steady arm to help the still-dazed Konrad Curze stand as well.
Deep in Curze's pitch-black eyes lingered the embers of terror and awe left by the prophetic vision. The images of the blazing dragon and the golden figure's back still seemed to burn against his retinas.
He gave Lorgar a long look. That face, bathed in the faint light of dawn and wearing a peaceful smile, overlapped with the resolute figure he had just seen charging into the fires of destruction.
Like a cold seed, a decision quietly took root deep within him, in the soil where dawn had only just illuminated a corner.
He swiftly buried it, carefully sheltering it beneath his innate silence and darkness.
Some vows needed no words.
"My brother..." Lorgar's voice brought him back from his brief reverie. The word "brother" still carried an unquestionable warmth and weight.
"Curze." Lorgar's smile brightened. He turned to stand beside Curze, and together they gazed at the vast, gloomy outline of Nostramo's city beyond the mine pit.
"Welcome home."
At the distant horizon, where his gaze led, the scene was undergoing a profound transformation.
The long night, a symbol of decay and the rule of the powerful, had finally reached its end. Shafts of golden dawn fought their way through the thick, polluted clouds like countless swords, cleaving and scattering the darkness that shrouded the land.
The light that symbolized Imperial order was returning with unstoppable force.
And answering this dawn in nature was the might of the Imperium of Man.
Enormous shadows fell across the city. The Word Bearers' Battle Barges slowly adjusted their positions like floating mountains, dangerous indicator lights flashing around the open deployment hatches along their undersides.
Meanwhile, the Ultramarines patrol fleet stationed in